Waitress who threw lesbian couple out of bar in Baden found guilty

It’s been over a year since a waitress in Baden threw a lesbian couple out of a bar. The two affected women, Teja Mucnjak and Sabrina Burger, filed a discrimination complaint and described their experiences at the ‘Rail One’ restaurant in a video on social media, as Watson already reported.

They were just talking in the bar, holding hands and occasionally kissing, when the waitress gave the couple back the money they had already paid for their two beers and asked them to leave. “There are other people here who don’t want to see this,” the waitress allegedly told them, as they said in their video.

The video caused a sensation. There were negative reviews for the “Rail One” on Google Maps. The landlord then spoke out in the media. He justified the expulsion of the two women as follows: “They were making movements like during sex.” He doesn’t care that the two women are lesbians. “Even a woman and a man can’t make love here in front of everyone.”

The innkeeper also provided Watson with footage from his surveillance camera that captured the incident. It’s just stupid: there were no “movements like during sex” to be seen. And doubly stupid: it was precisely these shots that helped the couple win the case, because they show the waitress giving the women money back and asking them to leave. “Without the video it would have been one statement against another,” says Teja Mucnjak.

At the end of February, the Baden public prosecutor found the waitress who threw the lesbian couple out of the restaurant guilty. She “denied a service she offered that was intended for the general public to a person or group of people because of their sexual orientation.”

The defendant was given a suspended fine of 30 daily rates of 70 francs each and a fine of 400 francs. The Public Prosecution Service has also decided that it must reimburse the two plaintiffs’ legal costs and costs.

Despite the severe punishment, plaintiff Teja Mucnjak is happy with the verdict:

For Mucnjak and her then partner, appearing in public with their faces and names was a step with far-reaching consequences. “We have often experienced strangers coming up to us, insulting us or shouting homophobic slogans,” says Mucnjak. It was especially bad in the first few months after the video was published. However, such actions have not completely disappeared to this day.

Unfortunately, bringing these incidents to court achieves little. “The same problem arises that we would have had without the video at the bar: it would be one statement against another,” Mucnjak says.

But that doesn’t take away her joy at the waitress’ conviction. And she would also post the video online afterwards: “It is important to draw attention to the fact that people in Switzerland still experience discrimination because of their sexual orientation.”

The Lesbian Organization Switzerland (LOS) also announced its delight at the verdict in a press release:

However, the decision of the Baden Public Prosecutor’s Office is not yet legally binding. The waitress has objected to the injunction and is taking the case to the next authority.